New Build for Work and Virtualization

Haven't built a PC in years, but the Dell D620 laptop I use at home is just getting way too old and clunky. Looked at buying Dell or some other pre-built PC, but decided it might make sense to get some more bang for my buck and do a build.

I mainly want a nice, quiet machine for doing work on away from the office. Something speedy and quiet and capable of running a few virtual guests either via HyperV, VirtualBox or VMware Workstation. I don't really play games much, but would like something capable of playing Civilization if I so felt the urge.

Getting up to speed on all the latest motherboards and processors is a bit daunting... but I did come across this thread by someone who seemed to have fairly similar objectives to my own. After pillaging the OP's parts list, I came up with my own package:

Haswell was just released a few days ago and will hit retail over the next week or so. There won't be any discounts on IvyBridge, so you might as well bump up to an i7-4770 and a socket 1150 motherboard. It will be ~13% faster.

I would recommend the i7-4770 over the i7-4770K due to the inclusion of VT-d and TSX, which sound better for your use case than the ability to overclock.

I use that same PSU and CPU cooler on a SandyBridge i5-2500K. You will be very happy with the acoustics. The PSU is well worth the money.

You're vague on the VM requirements, and I don't know if you are getting a sizable discount, but I would encourage you to go with 16GB (2x8GB) of memory to start and upgrade if necessary. You can probably save $100, at least for several months.

I would suggest adding a 2nd SSD or a HD to handle the storage, unless your VMs are absolutely tiny.

You'd be surprised at how much you can do in Hyper-V with a single 240GB SSD. I usually run about 6 VM's w/o issue. Anything on the VM that needs bulk storage (not OS / SQL) gets a VHD on a spindle. Works well.

Well, got distracted by life and didn't end up ordering this thing. A couple of months have passed and reading all of the responses here as well as new threads I've made some updates.

Namely switching to the Haswell CPU (the "S" variant for its lower power consumption), dropping the memory to 16GB, eliminating the video card (not gonna be doing gaming and sounds like the Haswell video is quite usable) as well as starting out with a single 27" monitor. I think the latter will be more than sufficient for my mostly "work" needs and the motherboard has both HDMI and DisplayPort out so I can add a second Dell later if needed.

All of the low power processors, including the S models, are deceptive.

First, any 4770 that you buy almost certainly cannot dissipate 84W, even under obscene load. The Intel TDP numbers are 1) an absolute worst-case cooling requirement, and 2) artificially inflated to create market segmentation.

Second, TDP is not, in any way, a measure of efficiency. The 4770 and 4770S are identical chips. The only difference is that Intel does "validation" (read segmentation) to say that the 4770S's TDP will not exceed 65W. They have the exact same efficiency; the 4770S is just lower clocked.

Based on your case and the CPU cooler, you do not have a restricted cooling environment (eg. an industrial system). There is no reason to buy the 4770S, unless the couple of dollars separating them is a deal breaker. Under normal circumstances, they will use the exact same amount of power and output the same amount of heat. Under heavy load, the 4770 easily outperforms the 4770S.

I bought my i7-4770 at Microcenter for $250, and the i7-4770S is $280. Definitely go with the 4770.

I'm not a CPU cooler expert at all, but I don't really like the Noctua that you selected. I have used the Coolermaster Evo 212 before, and it's really nice. However, I just built an i7-4770 system and went with the Coolermaster T4, which is just slightly shorter than the 212 and provides quite similar cooling capabilities. $15 cheaper on Newegg than your Noctua. However, the stock cooler is totally sufficient if you want to save a few bucks.

That PSU is awesome. I have the same one (maybe a prior version, but fanless and right around 400W). On my new system, I bought a cheap Corsair CX-430M. The idea was that I would take the fanless Seasonic out of my old system, which is now a server, and put it in the i7-4770 system, which is my new desktop. I cannot hear the CX-430M whatsoever, and didn't bother doing the swap due to the work involved. The Seasonic PSU is really awesome, but you can definitely save without hardly any consequence.

I went with basically the exact same memory, but the DDR3L version (same price and speed). With my T4 and mITX motherboard, it's a good thing because it wouldn't have fit otherwise, but you shouldn't have any problems. It was definitely a mITX problem.

Looks like a real solid list. Read over my CPU recommendation and possibly tweak the cooler and PSU, but otherwise I don't think that there are any problems.